Women In Art video – A survey of 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art – lacking in women of color, but otherwise a celebration of feminine beauty.
Related book: Seeing Ourselves : Women’s Self-Portraits, by Frances Borzello – “…self-portraits across eight centuries, deftly weaving together art and social history, the biographies [...]
“American Idol” finalist Katharine McPhee has acknowledged that she fought a five-year battle with bulimia, and had childhood reading problems that sabotaged her self-esteem and made her turn to food for comfort.
“Low self-esteem was huge for me,” McPhee said. “I was always the pretty little girl who was stupid. That was really difficult… I was [...]
“Drawing is sort of therapy for me. I draw in between film shooting sessions, I draw while flying on airplanes, and sometimes when I have days off.”
Actor Jane Seymour [from the page Painting 2]
Actively making a life of meaning beyond work can help keep us emotionally healthy and creatively dynamic.
Gabriel Byrne notes in an interview [...]
One study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression… “Model minority” pressure — the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally — helps explain the problem.
Professor Eliza Noh says, “In my study, the model minority pressure is [...]
Elisabeth Shue has been inspired by her new film “Gracie,” based on her own early life, which included playing soccer, to pursue her ambition to play tennis professionally.
A recent LA Times article [Whose life is it anyway?, By Gina Piccalo, May 27] notes, “After months of intense training, the 43-year-old aspires to be ranked by [...]
Harvard Professor Ellen Langer and colleague Alia Crum reported that they took 84 hotel workers and told one group that “the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle.â€
Langer and Crum told the control group nothing. Four weeks later, the control group hadn’t [...]
“I really don’t know how to be anyone else, and whenever I try to be anyone else, I fail miserably. Or I disappoint myself. It doesn’t build my self-esteem, and it doesn’t help me grow me at all.”
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“It was a very vulnerable time going from being insecure about my body and who I am [...]
Much of this site is about thinking, about exploring perspectives and ideas that can help us make more sense of how we operate, and be more fully conscious and creative.
But in his stimulating book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell writes about “rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in [...]
Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck): We’re both rotten.
Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray): Only you’re a little more rotten.
[Double Indemnity, 1944]
Those sort of critical insults may be fun in movies or novels, but how we think of ourselves – or what we accept others saying about us – can have a deep influence on how we engage [...]
Samantha Larson became the youngest foreign woman to scale Mount Everest, according to the Nepalese Mountaineering Department. A 15-year-old Sherpa girl from Nepal was the youngest ever to climb the peak.
Larson said Everest was “much harder, longer and higher” than the other peaks she has tackled in the past.
“There were a lot of difficult moments. [...]
In an interview about acting in her new film Bug, Ashley Judd describes the state of mind she values in her work:
“For me, what I look for is to do a take and have very little if any memory of what just happened. That’s the sort of take where I’m satisfied and sated and I [...]
“The more you know, the more competent you will become. And the more competent you become, the greater your sense of self-esteem and confidence. This equals increased personal power – the sure mark of an achiever on the road to prosperity.
“BUT – many very successful people insist it’s equally important to read and study totally [...]
Many people make use of their abilities and achieve satisfaction in life by becoming focused pros or even experts in one area. But many others keep exploring multiple talents, interests and passions.
In her article Are You a Scanner?, Barbara Sher identifies people with “intense curiosity about numerous unrelated subjects” who are “endlessly inquisitive and interested [...]
So much of our culture, including mass media, entertainment and commercial interests, emphasize relationships – pursuing them, celebrating them, making ourselves fit and competitive enough to have a “good” one.
Writer Jessica Valenti thinks “the romantic industrial complex” can be destructive to both men and women, because it reinforces these ill gender roles that position women [...]
Christopher Gardner [to his son]: “You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something? Go get it. Period.”
Chris Gardner [photo] was played by Will Smith in the movie based on his life and book: The Pursuit of Happyness, about [...]
In a recent interview [Miranda Writes, by Scott Indrisek, Radar Magazine], writer, actor and director Miranda July refers to making an upcoming book based on to her web project, Learning to Love You More, and finding many creative projects submitted by “ordinary people.”
“I assume that not everyone is trying to be a famous artist,” [...]
Renaissance Souls, gifted adults, Scanner personality, psychology of giftedness, high aptitude psychology
“You don’t even know what you are deep inside. You’re not just some little waitress. Make the right choice. Start fresh.”
Diner owner Joe (Andy Griffith) to Jenna (Keri Russell) in the movie “Waitress.”
Here she is preparing one of her “genius” and amazingly delicious pies [...]
In his article The Myth of the Teen Brain (Scientific American MIND, April/May 2007), psychologist and editor Robert Epstein, PhD notes, “We blame teen turmoil on immature brains. But did the brains cause the turmoil, or did the turmoil shape the brains?”
He says brain imaging studies “find that teens and adults use their brains somewhat [...]
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness [bipolar disorder]. When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones.”
Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, M.D. – in her article What [...]
From Jennifer Louden’s site:
Self-improvement is a one-way ticket to misery, says bestselling author Jennifer Louden. Instead, the path to happiness and fulfillment starts with acceptance of who and where you are. As a result, Louden is announcing the first annual “Freedom from Self-Improvement Day,†this May 15, 2007.
“Beating ourselves up because our thighs aren’t thin [...]
In her article How to Use Music and Art as a Relaxation Technique Meditation, Susan Masters writes:
“The power of art induces a calm state of mind… any beautiful object, be it a flower, a painting, a piece of music, a movie or a well-written book, help us let go all the negative thoughts and the [...]
Story 1: “The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness†[May 11 2007] – By Aren Cohen. Last night I went to hear a child psychiatrist named Edward M. Hallowell give a talk on his new book “The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness.â€
Dr. Hallowell.. takes a strengths-based approach to treating children with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), [...]
I believe it is possible for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. For me, the difference between an “ordinary” and an “extraordinary” person is not the title that person might have, but what they do to make the world a better place for us all.
I believe in both my right and my responsibility to work [...]
Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst of “Spider-Man 3″ are both dynamic and accomplished actors – and drug users, like many other creative and talented people have been.
Tobey Maguire revealed he has been going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for more than a third of his life, starting when he was 19.
“I have an addictive nature,” he [...]
Responding to the question: “What kills creativity?”, actor Gillian Anderson once replied succinctly, “Ego.”
One sense of this word “ego” is a distorted self-regard, what psychologist Carl Jung referred to as “inflated consciousness… hypnotized by itself.”
Many people recognize the need to modulate this kind of ego in order to facilitate the creative process. But we need [...]
Robert Kiyosaki [author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad] and psychologist Kenneth W. Christian [author of Your Own Worst Enemy] note in my post Schooling can leave us with limitations that the standard educational system can have negative impacts on gifted and talented people. And many rebel at it.
The image is a poster for Fracture, co-starring [...]
